West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin fears a full-court-press from the media on gun control, according to the leader of a gun-rights group who met with him Tuesday afternoon in his Charleston, W.Va. office.

“Senator Manchin told me,” Morgan wrote, “what the media will do if Congress (including the US House of Representatives) fails to pass an AWB and/or mag restrictions.”

“‘They will one, by one, put up pictures of dead children. They will show the carnage,'” he recalled Manchin warning.

“Considering that tomorrow, President Obama will be exploiting children by dragging them on stage with him while he outlays his plan, this is not a huge leap,” Morgan added. “And these are the words of a United States senator. … That is a direct quote. Verbatim.” (RELATED: Obama to showcase gun-control campaign Wednesday)

Manchin, the former governor, won his Senate seat partially on the strength of a television ad in which he fired a rifle bullet through a copy of the “cap and trade” environmental legislation, a bill that was wildly unpopular in coal-rich West Virginia.

“As your Senator,” he said in the ad, “I’ll protect our Second Amendment rights. That’s why the NRA endorsed me.”